1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic musical instrument, and more particularly to a technique for facilitating the initialization and implementation of a local control function for an electronic musical instrument.
Various electronic musical instruments, such as electronic organs and electronic pianos, have been developed and are now in practical use. These electronic musical instruments generally require multiple operation terminals to select and enable their various functions.
Because the space available for mounting operation terminals is limited, and since manufacturing costs can be reduced by providing fewer controls, electronic musical instruments (in particular, home-use pianos, simply structured keyboards, and student organs) are so designed that manipulation of a number of operation terminals is normally required to select and enable a specific play function.
As using multiple operation terminals to perform a specific operation to set an initial value following power switch-on and initialization, and to thus place an electronic musical instrument into a desired play mode, is both complicated and troublesome, an improved operational procedure is desirable.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a conventional electronic musical instrument, the initial state of the local control function, for example, has to be set after power switch-on. The local control function determines whether an electronic musical instrument will function independently or in conjunction with an external device.
When the local control function of a conventional electronic musical instrument is in the ON state, the electronic musical instrument independently produces musical tones in consonance with play data that are generated at its keyboard.
When the local control function is in the OFF state, however, the electronic musical instrument produces musical tones in consonance with externally supplied play data (for example, externally supplied MIDI data), or outputs, to an external device, play data (MIDI data) that are generated at its keyboard.
As it is difficult, however, to provide a dedicated operation terminal for the activation or deactivation of the local control function, multiple operation terminals are utilized. To set the operational mode of the local control function, multiple operation terminals (buttons) must either be depressed simultaneously or must be repeatedly depressed in a prescribed sequential order. Then, to alter the ON/OFF state of the local control function the same procedure must be repeated.
Because the local control function is normally set to its ON state when power is switched on, if an electronic musical instrument is to be used with its local control function in the OFF state, the above described state switching must be performed. As the procedure is both complicated and laborious to perform, entry errors are easy to make.